Clinton momentum stalls, as Obama speeds

Agencies|

Feb 11, 2008, 01.03 PM IST

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WASHINGTON: Hillary Clinton's White House juggernaut seems to be stalling, with its once apparently 'inevitable' surge to the Democratic nomination hitting multiple roadblocks set by her foe Barack Obama.

The former first lady's decision to shake up her brain trust, with Patti Solis Doyle quitting as campaign manager Sunday, reflected a candidacy under rising pressure, as the race's defining moments approach.

The days of gaping 30-point national opinion poll leads, and mismatched debates which saw Clinton dispatch her rivals, seem a lifetime, rather than a few months ago.

Now she is licking her wounds after stinging weekend loses to Obama in nominating clashes in Washington state, Louisiana, Maine and Nebraska.

On Tuesday, more misery is threatened in Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC, where polls show her at risk of another thumping.

The Super Tuesday nationwide showdown last week was once seen as the moment Clinton would claim history as the first woman White House nominee.

But she finds herself locked in a virtually neck-and-neck race with Obama for the convention delegates which will decide the nomination.

Obama has now won 20 states to Clinton's 11, though she snapped up the biggest prizes, California, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

"If the Democratic Party used a "winner-take-all" system, Hillary Clinton would be en route to being the nominee given the pattern of her victories," chief strategist Mark Penn said in a memo last week.

"But the proportional delegate system keeps this contest going with two candidates who have significant support."

But much of politics is about perception, and an impression is building that the momentum is with Obama.

Clinton's new campaign chief Maggie Williams must now assess whether her leads in Ohio and Texas, huge delegate-rich states she is banking on for vital wins on March 4, can withstand poundings from Obama in leadup contests.

The Illinois senator does well when he can unleash his soaring stump speech before massive crowds, and as contests thin out in the next few weeks, time is on his side.

"The more voters get to know Obama and his message of change, the more they support him, which bodes well for the upcoming primaries," his campaign manager David Plouffe said in a memo on Sunday.

After a grim weekend, Clinton is sure to face a flurry of "campaign in crisis" headlines, which may become self-fulfilling if they grab public attention.

So, she needs to quickly change the narrative, as polls show Obama begining to match her in national polls and trumping her in the money raising stakes.

Clinton's shake up was a long time coming. The axe had seemed about to fall after Obama won the Iowa caucuses on January 3, but was forestalled by the former first lady's comeback in the New Hampshire primary.

Williams has few obvious options to change the dynamic. Clinton has been trying to goad her rival to accept weekly debates but he has only agreed to two clashes before March 4.

Those encounters are now critical for Clinton, as the format plays to her strengths and gives her a chance to trap him into a mistake which could showcase his inexperience.

But she has learned that attacking Obama directly is perilous previous attempts saw her and ex-president Bill Clinton accused of playing the race card.

February 19, when midwestern Wisconsin holds its primary, is now Clinton's best chance to slow Obama before March 4.

The state's many blue collar workers, a demographic which normally plumps for Clinton offers promise, though Obama is only nine points behind her in an American Research Group poll taken on February 6 and 7.

Clinton will likely redouble efforts to woo "superdelegates," party luminaries who could play a kingmaker role and deciding the nomination.

She is also after the endorsement of former candidate John Edwards. "I intend to ask John Edwards to be part of anything I do when I'm in the White House," NBC News quoted Clinton as saying in Maine at the weekend, a day before reports said she had a secret meeting with him last week.

Her camp may also take solace in the almost supernatural survival instinct of the Clintons, who made a career out of confounding the chattering classes.